Recently Jane’s right arm had dislocated from her shoulder. She knew immediately that something was very wrong. She had dived into water off a diving board on a boat and that’s when it popped out. The story of how she got it back in was pretty much what one would expect, with a visit to …

Sometimes, redundancy isn’t enough. Recently, we ran into an issue with our shipping label printer. It had decided to stop functioning overnight. As far as we knew, nothing had changed between the close of business Wednesday night, and the start of business on Thursday. It always baffles us when something happens during off-hours that can …

Swaps, tradesies, in-kind, barter, whatever you name it we have had some interesting exchanges over the years. Early on, in our first location a young man came around peddling hair-cuts. If you know us even a little bit then you will know that it wasn’t considered risky for either of us to get coiffed by …

About five years after we began our business, we were asked by Stonewall Kitchen to give a proposal to be their exclusive coffee roaster. We were nervous nellies going into that audience full of eager, young, enthusiastic people. Having never really presented to a group of that caliber before, we called Gussie’s oldest brother to …

As we became more confident with taking our show on the road we decided to go for an even bigger fish. Well actually, Phish.  In 1997, We applied for the Limestone concert and paid our vendor’s fee.  It was no chump change, but we felt we would have a captive audience eager to work off …

Over the years as we became more courageous, we dabbled in new ways to make money and promote Carpe Diem Coffee.  One year we decided to have a coffee booth at the Bluegrass Festival at Thomas Point Beach in Bath, Maine.  We figured it was close to home if we needed to re-up supplies (which …

About three years into the business, and after presenting at several trade shows in Portland, Maine, we decided we wanted to crack a bigger nut.  We attended a food trade show at the Javits Center in NYC and thought we would aim for that show.  We decided to dip our toes into the bigger trade …

On October 1, 2006, we made our third, and final move, into our new roasting facility.  We had spent the previous year buying the land and watching the building be constructed. It was a thrill to go over to the other side of town and see the progress each day. Finally, we were going to …

  GOOD SAMARITANS Over the years, we have often been the beneficiaries of “Good Samaritans”.  Before we had even opened for business, we experienced our first random act of kindness.  Because we didn’t know better, when our roaster was delivered it was left in a crate on the sidewalk in FRONT of our new digs.  (We …

Redundancy. A term we fully embrace.  We recognized early on that one chink in the link of production and delivery could immobilize us.  We were fairly lucky during the first seven years of business operating with a single roaster.  It certainly didn’t mean that we didn’t hit bumps along the way, but it was a …

BLOG THREE As we have stated, Jane and I had secured seven accounts before we had even opened our business.  One such account was Cafe Brioche, in downtown Portsmouth, NH.  It was located on the hottest retail corner in the city. It required a massive brewer, coffee serving units and warmers and several grinders.  It …